Mo Fanning - British writer and comic

Diary

Finding your pandemic flow

by Leave a Comment

Flow
Flow – or being in the Zone

I keep hearing how life is looking up. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Freedom is on the way. So why do I feel more burdened than ever. Why can I complete no project? Why would I rather lie in bed scrolling through the news and social media than settle to something constructive.

Mr Fanning has used lockdown to learn how to plaster walls, move electrical sockets, and plumb in a sink. I’ve organised my spice cupboard.

Even when furlough landed in my lap, giving me twelve unadulterated weeks to write, I spent the days chatting online about how I should be writing. It was only when furlough ended that ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ saw progress.

Pandemic procrastination

At first, I blamed my Olympian level procrastination, but everyone I talk to says much the same. We’re in a collective state of bleurgh. We’re not burnt out or depressed. The notion that sits on my shoulder each day is one of “what’s the point in doing this today? Tomorrow won’t be any different.” And it’s not that I lack hope. I know this will also pass. It’s just much as the government tells us we’re ‘winning the fight’ I lack direction.

The cautious habits of last year – masks at dawn, rinsing innocent groceries, washing my hands to the tune of Deutschland über alles after opening the post – have fallen by the way. I hardly get to leave my house and mix with people these days, unless they’re also walking a dog. I try to strike up conversations with delivery men. I’m even toying with being nice to my hateful new neighbours whose sole contribution to the street seems to be six billion solar bulbs trailed through viciously pruned trees and across the once green lawns now home to grey slate.

I figure I’m sitting somewhere in between being positive about the future – my book comes out in just over a month and I’m halfway through writing another. Comedy clubs will open again and I’ve written so much new material, I could easily fill an hour (don’t worry, I won’t). I’m signing off on chapters of my fabulous new audiobook and translations of ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ ready for a summer of banging on about the book to anyone who will listen.

Moving on

I have no reason to feel down. Soon we should sell our Brighton flat and the inherited house in the Midlands and move to somewhere with no neighbours and a large abandoned garden. I might even get to slide into reduced work hours when free of a crippling mortgage, property management fees, and two stinging council tax bills.

And yet, I know my mental health isn’t great today. I’m not about to risk a drink, don’t worry. I’ve agreed that door is firmly shut. But the lack of motivation worries me. I’m no longer able to find delight when things go well or be bothered when they don’t.

I can’t be alone. This sense of being unable to produce anything of value or move on with things within my reach. Others must have this too.

Flow

I recently learned about ‘flow’. Also known as ‘being in the zone’ – a state of being where we become so absorbed that time flies by, and we forget we’re not at our best. It’s been around since the mid-seventies.

The only way to achieve ‘flow’ is to grant yourself the time and space and find that something to occupy your every available thought.

It doesn’t need to be building an extension or hanging more solar lights around a garden that can be seen from outer space. It can be as simple as an hour listening to an album you haven’t plays in five years or watching a show on YouTube, or catching up on the 2021 Eurovision Song Contest (my parties are legendary).

Taking time from our days (and guarding it) lets flow train your mind to let go of the fog. When someone interrupts (be they husband or dog), bat them away. Turn off email, turn off your phone, lock a door, turn off lights if need be. Drive to Barnard Castle for an eye test. Alone.

How are you coping with the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ days?

What’s your favourite flow?

Rebuilding Alexandra Small by Mo Fanning

Brighton – Six fun facts

by Leave a Comment

Brighton

I’ve spent eight years in Brighton – and it’s the setting for my upcoming book ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘. Brighton, though, is more than just a seaside town.

When Swedish supergroup ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with ‘Waterloo‘, it took place in Brighton – at the Dome – and a few years back, the BBC went back to Brighton to pick the 2018 UK Eurovision Song – sadly Surie is better known for a stage invasion than winning the event.

Home to the UK’s newest national park

Locals might know Brighton and Hove as London by Sea, but the city stands on the edge of a huge national park. From my front door on the edge of town, it’s just ten minutes walk to the South Downs – officially the UK’s newest national park.

From something new to something very old. The oldest cinema in town is the Duke of York’s – also said to be the oldest working cinema in Britain. You get to sit in big wide chairs and watch a mix of big hit and festival films – and when Eurovision comes around, watch the show live and cheer along (obviously not right now, because Covid).

All around town, Blue Plaques tell you about all the famous people who once lived in the town. I share my street with Nick Cave and at one point, Cate Blanchett was once a neighbour. Other faces spotted around town include Fat Boy Slim, Zoe Ball (doing a complex three-point turn in my street), Adele and even Sir Paul McCartney!

Brighton Pier

Brighton's West PierIf you’ve ever thought how much fun it might be to live in a Grade 1 listed building, I’m here to say it isn’t. If you want to change things, you’re up against many rules and committees. But one listed building designed for fun is the West Pier. These days, it’s little more than a ragged structure after fire destroyed the fun. Each year, high winds and storms take a little more away. At this time of year, starlings gather in a murmuration. The best way to show you this is with a picture.

The city is said to have once had many tunnels running under the streets – most now lost. One remains between the Royal Pavilion and the Dome. There’s another one leading from the gardens on Sussex Square to the sea front – believed to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll when writing Alice in Wonderland.

Want to know more about Brighton? My next book ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ set in this beautiful city comes out in June. If you’d like to read early chapters and enter the draw for free signed copies, please join my mailing list.

 

Covid lockdown madness – recording history

by Leave a Comment

We're COVID-Safe

It’s lockdown, but we’ve had someone in. He came to remove two radiators and deal with the bizarre (and clearly lethal) electrics in my mum’s old house. The very idea of hosting a stranger caused much excitement.

The word ‘hosting’ suggests something far more involved than it actually was. So read on.

In readiness, we stocked up on extra strong masks. Not the usual namby-pamby blue ones. The Fannings went for five-layer filtering half masks. Mr Fanning invested in three cans of spray antiseptic. Two hours before he was due to arrive, we threw wide each window. And let’s not forget it’s February. In the Midlands. And positioned bottles of hand sanitiser randomly throughout the house. We opened each possible cupboard he might need to touch and left interior doors ajar. The dog was bribed with a bone and confined to a bedroom, and I was instructed to stay in my office and not emerge until the coast was declared clear – through a complex system of knocks and code words. (I may have made the last bit up).

Gone too soon

He was here all of ten minutes, wore a mask and gloves, and refused any suggestion of tea. Not that one was on offer. Mr Fanning offered this as a test, to test how lapse he might be with staying Covid-safe. Had he said yes, we would have felt obliged to raze the building to the ground upon his departure.

I’m telling you this because in the (hopefully) near future, I’ll look back on this time and tell myself lockdown wasn’t so bad. I just want to be sure I remember it was.

Mad.

In other news, I just finished edits on ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small‘ – not long now until I start offering free copies in a special mailing list contest. Join if you want in.

Alcohol and me: An uneasy mix

by Leave a Comment

Alcohol and me by Mo Fanning

Ten years ago, I woke in a fog, knowing that what happened the evening before was bad. I’d stumbled and cracked a rib. Broken glass littered the kitchen floor. At some point, the police came. None of this stopped me drinking again that night.

It took another year of making a total arse of myself before I grew tired of drink. I’ve enjoyed a few pints since, but the urge to lose myself at the bottom of a bottle has gone.

Do I miss being able to drink? Yes. To some extent. I miss having an easy way to turn off my brain. Some nights, I lie awake for hours, going over the tiniest detail of some conversation that (to others) likely meant little. I replay each exchange and try to understand why I failed to be a better version of me.

Hangovers

Do I miss the hangovers? Yes. I loved to eat junk food and guzzle Orange Fanta without remorse.

Do I miss opening my eyes and trying to remember what happened before I tuned out? No. I really don’t.

I became one of those drunks who lost track after one too many. I’d still talk and walk, but wake the next day with no memory of what I’d said or done. Writing about such madness now, it sounds a million years ago.

It’s tough not drinking in a society where alcohol rules. Especially during lockdown. Every Friday Zoom meeting ends with someone saying how much they can’t wait to pour a gin and switch off. I no longer allow myself that luxury. I can’t pour myself one of anything, and so make do with none.

As I wrote Rebuilding Alexandra Small, I looked back over my career as a problem drinker and tried to work out what I wanted to say about why. The answer seemed easy. A perfect life. And thanks to the fog of alcohol, I felt sure I had one. It’s only now I’m sober that I find otherwise.

Help with alcohol

If you think you have a serious drinking problem and are experiencing any of the associated symptoms of alcohol dependence, you should consult your doctor or another medical professional about it as soon as possible.

There are also a number of national alcohol support services that you can go to for advice.

Lockdown: The year of doing nothing

by Leave a Comment

Lockdown masks please

What did I do during lockdown? Did I learn another language, take up meditation, reorganise my life? No, actually I sat on my arse and stared at a computer screen, scrolling news site after news site hoping for something better. I took my ability to put things off to a whole new level. With a chapter to write or a short story to edit, I set aside tomorrow, and couldn’t settle to a blank page without first making sure I’d dusted shelves, peeled carrots, reorganised my spice collection or washed the bedroom windows.

My lockdown creation‘See how brilliantly this has come out,’ I said, brandishing what used to be a pickle jar at Mr Fanning. Sprayed Winter Gray and filled with dried flowers snaffled from Etsy. My creation would surely spark joy. Those were the days.

Ten months into lockdown and we’ve run out of things to say. We no longer rant and read headlines. All fight is drained. Quaint expressions like Covid Tsars, Track and Trace and I only drove to Yorkshire to test my eyes are consigned to the bin fire of recent history. Boris Johnson has copied Theresa May’s homework and passed it off as his own and dragged the country out of Europe when unity and group purchase power matters more than ever. A year ago, I’d be on a march, or demanding to talk to my local MP. Now I tut and turn the page.

I’ve lived through panic buying loo roll, tinned tomatoes and dried pasta, cut my own hair badly and refused to rattle saucepans as the NHS re-appropriated my rainbow.

Lockdown mania

Having always had an anal side (no sniggering in the cheap seats), Covid lockdown has brought out in me a new mania for cleaning products. I’ve every type of spray and pump-action refillable pouch known to man. The Fanning homestead smells of lemon, pine and honeysuckle rose. I discovered Apartment Therapy and bought into each tip and trick they sent my way. I’ve trolled Amazon for tools to clean windows, sprays to remove rust and (much to Mr Fanning’s chagrin) declared war on any item left out on a surface after use.

I’ve read many books. I tried Audible for a while, but never lasted longer than two minutes of someone’s soothing voice before losing consciousness and waking three hours later with the same voice now sixteen chapters further on. All these other stories did was make me more determined to write and finish Rebuilding Alexandra Small. And yet I still took eight months to progress from third to fourth draft.

I’ve filled many bin bags with the contents of my late Mother’s house. ‘Out with the old,’ I cried. ‘This is grief therapy.’ And then cowered out, stashing everything in a garage. I’ve made sourdough twice, a pizza once, and used hardly any of the stockpiled pasta.

2021

With 2021 barely on solids, it’s time to pretend I’ll make changes. Eat better, get fitter, spend less, write more, buy a sous-vide and never look back. Lockdown takes away any excuse about there not being enough hours in the day. With no morning or evening commute, a kitchen on hand, and zero social life, I should be laughing.

The issue here isn’t society or corona or the Tory party. It’s me. I’m lazy at heart. The only things done half well involved giving stuff up (smoking and drinking) rather than taking on new hobbies.

But come on. A sous-vide has to be worth a shot.

Coming soon ‘Rebuilding Alexandra Small’ and if you’re up for reading advance chapters and special offers, please join my mailing list.

The first TEN people to sign up will be sent a Kindle version of ‘The Armchair Bride’ absolutely FREE.

Rebuilding Alexandra Small will be published in 2021. The Armchair Bride is now available now from all good websites and bookstores. If you’d like to support my work, consider using Patreon.